Siege of Durazzo (1126)

The Siege of Durazzo was a failed attempt by the Byzantine Empire to retake the city of Dyrrhachium from the Republic of Venice, who had taken it from Greek Rebels in 1086. Led by the Byzantine nobleman Volkanos Metochites, the Byzantine Greek army encircled the city but was defeated in a Venetian sortie due to poor leadership.

Background
The mercantilist Republic of Venice and the declining Byzantine Empire were the two most powerful nations on the Mediterranean Sea during the time of the Middle Ages, with Venetian travelers reaching the Orient and with Byzantine merchants in The Balkans selling diamonds and other goods. Venice made its first moves of expansion by taking Zagreb and Durazzo from Croatian and Greek Rebels in the 1080s, in a string of conquests soon followed by the suppression of the Republica Florentina and the annexation of Bologna from the Holy Roman Empire. By the 1120s a war with the Duchy of Milan was already underway, in which Milan itself was occupied by Venetian forces. However, their petty wars in Italy were unmatched with the impending war with the Byzantines, who were eager to gain more European territories as they lost their Arabian regions to the rising Seljuks and The Turks.

Family member Volkanos Metochites was sent with an army of nearly 2700 Byzantine soldiers to capture the city of Durazzo, formerly the Byzantine city of Dyrrachium which had been captured by the Greek Rebels in 1080. The capture of the city by Venice in 1086 was followed by the construction of city fortifications in the case of a siege by Byzantines or possibly by the Turks, and the Byzantines not only faced a vast array of troops under Prince Barbus Selvo, but also fortified walls and archer towers.

Siege
The siege began in 1126, with the Byzantine army moving in to encircle the city. Barbus Selvo, the governor of the city, decided to cart in all of the food and provisions inside of the castle walls, toiling to make sure that not one civilian or piece of equipment fell into Byzantine hands. Selvo's archers delivered fire on encroaching caravans of Byzantine troops who moved in with siege equipment in a series of skirmishes. After a short siege, the Venetians mustered their strength and Barbus Selvo arranged a breakout against the Greek Army.

Metochites was a poor general and the Byzantines lacked proper command or experience. The Venetian army's counteroffensive drove the Byzantines back, inflicting heavy losses with relatively few dead. Barbus Selvo's forces delivered a crushing victory, and the Byzantine army withdrew into the Balkans.